Wallflowers
by Madam.Degrassi's Fortnight
Summary: Wallflowers are never what they seem... Short oneshot based loosely off Umbrella.


**A/N: Hey guys, this is something I've been working on since I've been feeling kinda down, so I hope you like it. I'll be working on See My Thoughts right after I upload this! Thanks!**

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Wallflowers are nothing like what they seem.

Wallflowers appear to be on the outside, only because they have been transplanted from their original territory into someplace entirely different and foreign.

Wallflowers appear to be slow bloomers, but that is only because they are actually wilting, pulling back from their daunting new territories like Morning Glories that close up at night to conserve their resources.

They may be beautiful, but they feel ugly, like they have been stripped prematurely of their petals. They feel like life is overwhelming and incomprehensible, like roots deprived of water and nourishment.

This is exactly the way I feel.

My sister is off in Africa, my parents are getting divorced, and my school is like a prison cell. I feel trapped, like I am unable to draw a breath. My life, once so perfect, is whizzing around in circles, and I feel like I have fallen off the face of my parents' attention earth. My presence goes unnoticed anymore while I'm home unless I've failed to complete my chores, and everything in my life seems to be falling apart. I can't even cry for the sorrow I feel, it just wells up inside of me and refuses to burst through my fragile emotional shield.

I feel nothing anymore. Feeling is only a myth, an experience that I can barely recall in the recesses of my mind.

And it frightens me.

There is only one person that has brought the concept of feeling back into my life.

Eli.

Eli Goldsworthy.

My boyfriend.

My love.

We started off slowly, almost riskily. He had baggage, and I was beginning my packing. He blamed himself for the death of his girlfriend, I blamed myself for my parents fighting. The first time we kissed, I felt the first layer of my grief begin to slide away, melting faster than I could have even imagined. The second time was all about us. This was no project, it was simply _feeling_.

And I felt again.

After that, he almost died, and I couldn't bring myself to speak to him over the break. I was afraid that I would break down, that I would find myself wilting and dying in front of him, because he had almost died in front of me. My emotions almost broke then, and I felt the first tears in a long time teaming at the corners of my eyes, but they never fell.

Life grew crazy, and I rebelled too much, too hard. For the young woman who had always known where she was going, her life was currently at a dead end, and I had gone so far as to proposition him, which he had, in a very gentlemanly fashion, turned down. After that, everything became strained between us until the strain broke us and we acknowledged that we were different, and learned to live with it. My heart healed a few of the large gashes, and it was no longer just a tattered rag in my chest that pumped blood through my body.

But it was the day that I stopped feeling afraid that I truly felt….

We were sitting on the couch, watching TV, and I was snuggly curled up against Eli's side, and then somehow, I was straddling his waist and kissing him hard. Eli's hands were gripping my waist, and then, before I could let myself pull away or experience any fear over my decision, he was lowering me to the floor. He was gentle, but we both knew that I wouldn't break, and I was soon gripping Eli's shoulders, not only to get closer to him, but to also keep myself from sliding across the floor.

That night, he gently anointed my rug burn with salve before kissing my shoulders so softly….

He graciously showed me the joys of being on top that night.

And from there, my wallflower petals began to fall, one by one. They were stripped of their shyness, of their insecurity, and I once again felt like I could breathe. I felt like I could live, but I tried not to draw on it too much, because I was simply enjoying the feeling of _feeling_.

My love for Eli never wavered, nor his for mine. We clung to each other. He was the water to my plant, and I was the fruit of his toils. We could no more be separated than the tide can be held back, and our love overflowed. We rarely spoke of it, and we treated each other as equals. There were no annoying PDA's for us, since we kept our relationship quiet. Until we got home, that is.

There were several times where I could barely get in the front door of the Goldsworthy house before Eli was shoving me up against the door and smirking wickedly as I literally tore off his clothes. He, of course, returned the favor with great gusto. Everything in his house was fair game for us. The counter, the table, any available wall, the front door, the couch, and on rare occasions, Eli's bed. He refused to come over to my house, saying that my parents popped in at unpredictable times (which was true) and that his parents were inevitably late since their jobs required them to work throughout the day (which was also true).

So Eli's house it was.

It probably was the smartest course of action for us to take at the time, and there were several instances over the next few years we were together that I was afraid that our relationship would end, but it never did. We stuck together, and no matter how hard we tried to distance ourselves from each other, we always came back. We were like magnets to each other, and by the age of seventeen, I knew that my life would consist of Eli, or nothing.

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Now, six years later, we are celebrating out fourth wedding anniversary. I can still remember the day that Eli told me that he wanted to wait until I could legally drink champagne at my own wedding. And so we had waited. We got married the week after my nineteenth birthday, and have been happily wed since then. Being young didn't matter. We were in love, and that's all that counted. My fingers ghost over the small baby bump I now carry and I remember with a smile those days where my life had fallen apart, and Eli had been the only one to help me pick up the pieces.

In those days, which seem so long ago, now, we rarely spoke of love. We knew that we loved each other, there was absolutely no question about that, but we rarely said it. Now, I hear it every day, multiple times a day, and my heart soars each time I return the most cherished sentiment in the world.

Because I remember those days where my back would hit the door, floor, bed, counter, etc., and our emotions would be based on the physical aspect of sex. But in those moments when Eli would tiredly lift me off the counter, or the floor, and carry me upstairs, I remember him whispering every time, "I love you so much, Clare."

And the feeling I got from those whispered words, when he thought I couldn't hear him, made the last of my wallflower characteristics crumble. In those moments, I began to bloom.

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**A/N: So...I hope it was okay. I'm not really one for first person, but I hope I did an okay job. Thanks so much for reading, and please review! :D**


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